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Suggested Anaerobic or High Aerobic workout displays as Base workout after adding additional run time

After completing a suggested Anaerobic or High Aerobic workout, I often continue running for some time. When I complete the workout, sometimes the workout displays as the anaerobic or high aerobic workout I selected, but sometimes it displays as a Base workout.

I've considered the following possibilities:
• The slower running I've added to the workout reduces the overall intensity of the workout.
• The additional time I've added to the workout overshadows what Garmin has allotted for the Anaerobic or High Aerobic workout.

Does anyone have any informed opinions as to why this might happen and what to do to keep the workout as the same category I started with?

  • The training effect is based on how fast and how high the peak Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption estimate goes. The peak EPOC dynamics are modeled during the workout. It is combined with the activity level of the user to derive the Training Effect, although that level has a secondary influence: for the same effort, a very active athlete will see a slightly lower TE than an untrained one.

    Because only peak EPOC counts, if warm-ups and cool-downs are relatively short and low intensity compared to the working interval(s), they will have a very low influence on TE.

    You can display the 2 components of the TE during the workout. You will see that the aerobic component builds up relatively steadily, with a decreasing rate. The anaerobic component is more blocky; you need to essentially perform at maximum effort for the duration to see a bump, and bumps get smaller with more repeats.

    If a workout doesn't get you the expected TE during a run, it can be because your Max HR is wrong, leading to a wrong VO2 Max, or your rest HR is wrong, or your HR/pace workout data is not right (eg not wearing a chest strap), or there is a bias in your training history, leading the watch to get a biased relationship model between your HR and your pace.